Take-Two is extending its offices to Japan. Rather than let other publishing partners such as Capcom or D3 Publishers slap their logos on their games, Take-Two will open their own office to publish their games in the land of the rising sun.
The first game to be released will be GTA: Episodes from Liberty City. There are no further details as to when and what platforms
[via Joystiq]
Although it seemed likely that NHL 2K11 was getting canned by Take-Two, it appears that there still might be hope. A recent ad listing, picked up by a Kotaku tipster, points out that 2K Sports is seeking musicians for the NHL 2K11 soundtrack.
"2K Sports is looking for a band who can provide a song to help round out the NHL 2K11 soundtrack," reads the listing. "NHL 2K11 is the latest in a series of critically acclaimed hockey games, due out in September 2010." Bands that are chosen will receive $3,000 compensation (as well as some nifty exposure).
The posting expired January 20, and it was created January 6, which was well after 2K's announcement saying the company was "evaluating" its sports portfolio.
Take-Two announced today that three of its Board executives will be standing down at the shareholders' requests. CEO Ben Feder and directors Grover Brown, Esq. and John Levy are to be replaced by three new board members as appointed by the shareholders. That said, Feder will continue to act as the company's CEO.
"I want to express my gratitude to Ben, Grover and John not only for their dedicated service to Take-Two stockholders but also for their very gracious decision not to stand for re-election so that we can facilitate a change in Board composition," stated chairman Strauss Zelnick.
E3 is no more than five months away, and its website went live earlier today, listing some of the show's exhibitors (and missing a few as well). Notably absent from the list is Take-Two Interactive, but contrary to other reports, T2 will be at the show.
"...we are planning on taking part as usual at this year's E3," a T2 spokesperson told Big Download.
Other notable absentees from the list include NCSoft, Namco Bandai, Southpeak, and Blizzard (although Blizzard does BlizzCon in August).
E3 takes place June 15-17 at the LA Convention Center.
Wired.com has written a great article explaining why Duke Nukem Forever failed to ever release, with the main culprit being one of gaming's best features: improving technology. Simply put, 3D Realms' co-owner George Broussard just couldn't settle for Forever looking anything less than extraordinary; the best game out there.
Take-Two today announced its plan to sell subsidiary video game distributor Jack of All Games to Synnex, a software-distribution company. Jack of All Games was acquired by T2 in 1998 and distributed T2-published games. The sale is expected to take place in Q1 2010, costing Synnex "$43.25 million, including $36.50 million in cash and up to an additional $6.75 million based on the achievement of certain items." Take-Two CEO Ben Feder stated that the company will continue to work with Jack of All Games after the sale.
This news, of course, follows the recent announcement that Take-Two saw a loss of $138 million this year.
[via Joystiq]
As a stellar franchise and one of publisher Take-Two's key titles, one might think that downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV would sell without problem. Unfortunately for the company, that has not been the case. While some believe GTA has peaked, others just think there was a timing issue. One of these individuals is Take-Two CEO Ben Feder. Feder spoke about the poor sales for The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, and he believes it was just a case of poor timing on their part.
"Both we and Microsoft believed there was a big market for GTA 4 episodic content and some factors affected their performance, he said. "Both were released significantly after the launch of the core unit and therefore weren't able to leverage GTA 4's initial marketing campaign and initial launch fervor."
However, Feder is still optimistic about the franchise as a whole, commenting, "There's very little precedent for this type of episodic content at the price point we offered it. And so we're confidant that these titles will continue to have a long life just as we've seen a long life from all of our other prior GTA releases."
Yesterday we found out that Take-Two took a pretty big hit this year, losing $137.9 million. Is 2K Sports, a T2 subsidiary, to blame? It's apparent that the poor sales of the company's baseball games is partly at fault for the publisher's financial struggling, and the latest word on the street is that NHL 2K11 is getting canned because of it.
Take-Two published its Q4 2009 fiscal results yesterday, and along with it, a release schedule of games. NHL 2K11 was not included on that list, a strong indication that it's been axed. Chris Littman at The Sporting News’ FirstCuts blog asked 2K Sports about the missing title. A 2K rep made this comment:
We are currently in the process of evaluating our sports portfolio and have not announced any new NHL titles at this time.
That just about puts the nail in the coffin for the NHL 2K franchise I'm afraid. It looks like it's going to be taking the route of the College Hoops series, which suffered a similar death.
[via Destructoid]
Take-Two released its results for Q4 ending October 31, 2009, and the data shows that Gearbox's Borderlands has sold over two million copies worldwide. Pretty impressive numbers considering the game launched in November. Take-Two says the IP will become a key franchise for the company, meaning we'll definitely see more Borderlands in the future.
Despite the game's success, Take-Two still experienced a $138 million loss for its fiscal 2009. Take-Two's Q4 loss increased from $15 million this time last year to $22 million. The company's full year net loss totaled $137.9 million while total sales dropped from $1.54 billion to $968.5 million. The company has seen a 20% dip in its stock price after it lowered guidance for its fiscal Q4 and full-year 2009. This made many investors unhappy.
"Our company and industry experienced a very difficult economic environment in 2009," said Take-Two Chairman Strauss Zelnick. "We believe that 2010 will continue to be challenging and our outlook, while disappointing, reflects a prudent approach to managing our business. The fact remains that Take-Two is in a fundamentally strong position to build long term value. We have an outstanding portfolio of hit franchises based largely on internally developed and owned intellectual property, a team of extraordinarily creative and talented people, opportunities to extend our business to new media and markets, and the financial resources to support our strategies."
Payne fans feel the pain. Max Payne 3 isn't hitting its Winter 2009 release by a long shot. In a recent earnings report, Take-Two let slip that Max Payne 3 is being delayed til 2010, the company's fiscal Q4 2010 no less. That narrows it down to a window of August to October of next year. Although that's a long ways off, it's probably for the better. The Winter 2009 release date seemed unrealistic. We'll keep you up-to-date on this game.
BNG Crew
